AMPHAR

Early reports have Higgins looking good to go. Burrow says big season coming.

The playing of starters in preseason meaningless practice games will grab headlines. I don't think you need to grind them like they did back Marvin years. I do question the thought process of how you are protecting Joe by avoiding preseason games but at the same time rolling out a line Weeks 1-4 that is clearly not ready to play. The o-line protection stats for an entire season are not good and haven't been that way since they got rid of Alexander. Draw your own conclusions. But as bad as their entire regular season performance is the first 4 weeks are even worse which is amazing considering they are lucky to go through a game giving up less than 3 sacks. The 3 sack game and I don't even know how many pressures has become the gold standard post Alexander for any line they have rolled out on to that field. Its amazingly bad. Then you factor in carries for loss, no gain, or even 1 yard its even worse. Games like the Titans last year. Steelers year before simply put Joe at risk and its an unprepared lazy pass protecting group. I think you got to get that group out there for a quarter or two. Haven't tried in a long time. Might as well if they aren't going to fire a OL coach and OL scouts.

There still blurbs and what not that the Chase camp is waiting on other deals. If it were me, I'd be holding out and forcing the Bengals hand.

Mims done. Scheffty reporting

"Run on your own gas" was the best.

With a Punter battle and new kick off rule change there will be quite a bit to watch. Although the punter job could also be influenced with holding duties for FGs, place kicking.

If Trent Brown can't answer the bell in Zac's camp practices. They should go ahead and start looking elsewhere for an early season starter at RT,IMO. They can't repeat what they did with La'el letting that guy practice once or twice then walk into a starter spot. I hope Trent Brown is in good shape and participate in team reps. Sure give him vet days when needed.

He's a Vikings OT fumble from being 0-5 week 1. Then 0-10 first two weeks. The past 2 years its been "must win" week 3 on prime time. Thankfully they've gotten the win, but its such a buzz kill to start the season. It'd be nice to get an early season win vs. the Chiefs Week 2 But Patriots opening week 1 seems like the classic let down then they could end up going into Week 3 needing a must win on prime time again.

I would love for Burrow to get camp reps this year obviously. I don't really need to see him on field in preseason games. Same with Higgins/Chase. I do think they need to revert back to the old days for the Front 7 and O-line for preseason games and give them reps in preseason games. Probably the secondary too considering the amount of communication required. They give up a high number of pressures/sacks anyway but the amount they give in the first two games is even worse. Which is amazing considering how poorly they've protected a QB in recent years.

Biggest healthy team questions I have: 1. Right Tackle - Its been a thorn for Burrow's career with Jonah Williams giving them best but an average season. 2. Overall OL - led by the interior spots. Just an under whelming group overall even with fan favorite Karras. 3. Mixon, Boyd switched out for who????? A lot of veteran snaps gone; not impossible to replace hopefully it doesn't prove as difficult as the lost secondary players a year before 4. Speaking of Secondary. Easily the biggest concern for me entering the season while simultaneously being the biggest area of upside. I would say if everything comes up good it would not be a shock to the secondary among the leagues best. I've got zero concern about Chase, Higgins, and Burrow putting up numbers. The only concern would be injury which no body can control.

Certainly going to grab a couple tickets in August/September. Its a great stadium with no bad seats and they are playing great futbol.

Yeah last season sucked and the defense was horrible. I don't blame anyone not willing to extend the defense any props coming into 2024. I do think it has a very good chance to rebound up into the top 15 this year. I think Wilson, Pratt, and Hendrickson are underrated nationally. Logan Wilson has tied for the league lead in INT by LB two out of last 3 seasons. Trey tied league leader in sacks. Pratts has a ton of key turnovers. These three factors having top seasons could vault the defense back into the top half of the league. Then the secondary has a ton of potential and Lou has gotten the best out of a group of relative spare parts before (except Bates) Now he has legit players that are also athletes. D-line outside of Henderickson has something to prove but has guys you reasonable can hope for improvement.

The FC Cincinnati Lions with swords are back at the top of the table. (1st place). Very exciting rest of the summer/fall coming up. Along with a great Euro Cup on TV, it has been a good summer of soccer.

Agree. I guess it depends on what you define a "Breakout year". A healthy roster will make it tough for an alternate pass catcher like Yoshi individually top Boyd's numbers. You automatically know Chase/Higgins and some RB suck up 98% of snaps when healthy. That leaves 2 spots. Sample is going to suck up 40% of a games snap in some form of blocking scheme. I'd imagine "2 TEs" formations will increase with Gesicki basically acting as 3rd WR with TE designation. If they remain healthy, Burrow is going to need to push the snaps up to around 67-70 game for player like Yoshi wanting to put up enough snaps for people to declare "break out" year. The number of times they snap the ball also falls greatly on the O-line to remove a significant portion of negative plays they've been know to create.

Arbys biggest mistakes: 1. Removing the slicer. Blame Jersey Mikes, I don't know what it is but people love watching their meat being sliced. I guess you have to take Subway at its word because they now have signs indicating the meat is being freshly sliced in the back room. 2. The Italian Sub. Why would you take that off the menu? Subway still makes the spicy Italian although its not listed anywhere. This void led to the rise of Jimmys Johns!

3. Is probably my biggest fear. I know its in jest but if you remember Palmer and his elbow. At first, its no big deal. Then one day your tailgating get ready to whoop the Giants ass and after 11 am you hear Carson isn't active. What? Then he needed some time to get back up to top QB. He's due to have a drama free training camp, I just hope wrist issues don't pop up. I know they've given reasons for the brace pre game, but its just weird. Joe has some brace, then pops his wrist on a non contact throw.

I somehow doubt that the fan will get what they want once this lawsuit is finished. A fan that is out of market wants to flip on a TV, choose the game, pay a 1 time cheap price for that game, like renting a moving $3.99 or something. Then done. No future canceling, signing up for multiple weeks or a whole season. That's just not how this stuff works. The resulting product post lawsuit probably look like cord cutting today. A complete fucking mess. There's always going to be some sort of bundling of crap because the provider can't make money off singular offerings because of the distribution rights they pay. I'm also guessing sports bars are fucked afterward. Most that I've visited mark the TVs and have a section of fans occupying that section. I doubt its going to be cheaper and easier for them post lawsuit to do what they are doing now. Hopefully it will be, but I doubt it. The more interesting part will be paying of the fine. Do the owners try to get salary cap reduction? I would say the fine they are paying it really a rebate on the revenue they collected during those years. So will the cap go down since its based on league revenues. What if a 1 time rental fee approached the cost of a lower level ticket? $150-170 per game? Hard pass for me.

Exactly what the thinking was in 1994/95.

The potential loss of Reader pre-FA and the actual loss of Reader has always been an non-factor in my eyes. Rankins isn't a replacement for Reader. I view it as their attempt to recreate Hill/Ogunjobi pass rush combo in which NT snaps were only 53% (Mostly Reader). 2021. The run Defense for this team is going to be greatly influenced on how well Burrow generates points, the secondary gets stops. Which hopefully gets the help of more interior pass rush. Last year when the game flow resulted in the opponents being able to pound the ball and play conservative. Reader being on the roster didn't flip any of those results. Its going to be about putting scoring pressure on the other offense which allows Lou's bend but don't break defense to eventually keep them out of endzone. If game flows come up and teams can sit and play ground and pound they aren't stopping it with or without Reader, IMO. If Burrow is playing at the top of his game its going to be very hard for any team to start the game off trying to win it with ground and pound.

Hamilton County is fucked IF the Bengals leave, period. The half cent sales tax increase would not expire AND neither would the debt service. Somehow the Jags stadium built before PBS/Paycor and also received two major renovations prior to the recent $1.4 B project and that's 3 times more than Paycor projections. The Bengals could be dicks and put themselves out as Free Agents to get the biggest stadium possible and would probably come close to getting it. Their proposal put forward is quite reasonable don't fall for the County propaganda. The time to move on from the Bengals was 1995. County could have hedged their bets and tried to get UC or FC in PBS vs. investing in their own. Didn't happen. Sure anyone on the sidelines can make overtures about what is fair and what isn't. Hamilton county knows Bengals on the riverfront draws a ton of tax dollars to the county. Every other county in the country knows it too. Just save all the political BS and get it done because anyone with common sense knows the Bengals aren't losing this battle.

Nah. He owns Premier League team, wrestling. Shad Khan has sports "investments" as hobbies. More interesting, IMO, is most thought the Jags would be the first team to jump at any London opportunity. Jags are staying for a while with local investment. Also interesting that Jags stadium was originally a highschool stadium then Gator Bowl etc. They tore down everything but a portion of the upper deck prior to Bengals moving into PBS/Paycore. They've done big renovations before that to that stadium to host a Superbowl. Yet, its 1.4billion to renovate again? Paycore is only $400m something. Those Florida/Georgia cocktail party games must really put stress on the stadium.

Arby's is all over the place with that menu. Its like the fast food version of Cheese Cake factory.

I assume Joe did not pick out his outfits. There would be no greater statement in how the world of fashion is fake, IF the fashion starts following his pre-game attires. MUGATU - Joe Burrow is so hot right NOW!

I don't think I could identify 1 person only for the Bengals. Mostly eras of Bengal teams. The 1988 squad is still probably my favorite and when you look up team offensive stats from that era. Its still hard to believe no offensive unit has approached the Boomer/Wyche era since. Amazing really considering the 88 offense was running game and play action and all the offensive favoring rule changes and the Bengals since have never produce a unit that can approach season long averages of that team.

More fuel for the fire for the "NFL is fixed" crowd. Bengals have been featured on Hard Knocks twice. 2009 and 2013. Both division winning seasons for the Bengals. 2009 was such a fun season, IMO.